jonathan/ferguson

there was a time when i didn’t like indian food. what are these things? cloves? in the rice? when i didn’t care for indian music. is she really even saying anything? when i didn’t know the names of the languages spoken here. wait, i thought hindi was a religion. a time when the absence of toilet paper and deodorant would have been too much for anyone to ask. actually, cancel the last one. it still is.

but over the past four years what was someone else’s culture, someone’s else’s food, someone else’s land, someone else’s language, has all become part of my own. since the day my interest in india first took root, it has been watered with experiences here and at home that have grown it into the banyan tree it is today. there have been downpours and dry spells. but there has always been growth. and it hasn’t just been growth in knowledge and processes. systems and protocols. my heart has also grown. it has grown attached to this place. to this part of the world. to its beauty. to its people.

my year in india has made everything come alive. and the longer i am here, the harder it is to distinguish between my home and my home home. the differences don’t stand out nearly as much as they once did. it’s only in those random unannounced moments when i ask, “why is everyone doing it this way,” that the distinctions surface. i’m sure they will be clear again starting next week as my english is ridiculed and i begin to feel desperately far from throngs of people. but as i travel around the world and pick up pieces of culture and leave pieces of myself behind, the term foreign means less to me. it’s a term used to describe other people. not myself. i’m not a foreigner am i?

this year has been incredible in infinite ways. i have survived. i have thrived. my life has been enriched in ways i will never know. when i applied for this fellowship it was a long shot. but GOD had other plans. and what could have been became. it now becomes what was and over the next month i will contemplate what will be. but i’m not so sure my contemplation really even matters. what will be will be. and i will be there to take it all in.